Members of the rapid action police battalion stand outside a house where suspected militants lived in Dhaka, Bangladesh September 10, 2016 in this still image taken from video.
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The alleged militant, who was killed in a police shooting during a drive at capital’s Azimpur on Saturday and later identified as Shamsed Hossain, actually committed suicide, a forensic physician said Sunday.
The cafe assault, claimed by the Middle Eastern extremist group Islamic State, was the most shocking of a series of attacks that has included killings of atheist intellectuals, members of religious and sexual minorities and foreigners.
The government has pinned the blame on domestic militant groups, but security experts say the scale and sophistication of the incident suggest links to a trans-national Islamist network.
“Abdur Rahim was killed due to excessive haemorrhage after he slit his own throat with (a) sharp weapon”, forensic doctor Sohel Mahmud at Dhaka Medical College Hospital told AFP after submitting the autopsy report.
Police earlier said the man had been shot during the raid and gave no explanation for the change.
Five officers from the police counter-terrorism unit were wounded when women militants attacked them with chili powder, explosives and knives, police have said.
Karim had allegedly rented a flat for the militants who carried out the attacks on Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1 where 20 civilians, mostly foreigners, were killed.
Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen of Bangladesh origin, was shot dead during a gunfight with police last month.
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Police suspects one of the arrested women to be the wife of a slain ex-army major and militant leader Jahidul Islam who was killed in an anti-militancy clampdown in suburban Narayanganj on August 27.
